The first card I had I had to RMA, but it was super quiet even under load. Minimum fan speed on this card is 40%, and that's what it idled at (about 40°C) and it was about 60-70% speed under load. Beautiful.

However, after the RMA the second card was a lot louder. Idle noise levels were fine, but when you started playing any game it would ramp up to maybe 80-90% fan speed (I haven't got actual numbers to hand) and was considerably more off putting.

I put up with it for a while, thinking it may just be because the card was new and it'd settle down. However, this didn't happen. The noise was really too loud, it was harming my gaming experience, even with headphones. So I decided to do something about it.

I tried replacing the factory default thermal paste with Arctic Cooling MX-4. Cleaned it all up nice with white spirit, made sure there was no air in the application, cleared dust out of the heatsink but whoops, I made it worse. It's now 100°C and 100% fan speed. Unbearable.

I've tried redoing it with more and with less paste, but still the same results. Anyone have any ideas what I should try next?

It might sound nitpicky but I'm not picking on you in particular here, it's a general terminology issue . The GPU you have is an NVIDIA GTX 560, the video card you have is an MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II. GPU != video card, a GPU is the main component of an NVIDIA video card and was an NVIDIA invented term. There was a time when ATI called the Radeon chip a VPU (video processing unit) to distinguish it but now GPU tends to refer to both. Anyway, moving on to your issue.

Urban Reflex wrote:

I made it worse. It's now 100°C and 100% fan speed.

You no longer have good thermal conduction between the GPU and the heatsink, that's all this says but there could be a few causes. When you removed the heatsink for the second time was the thermal paste showing signs of sticking to both the heatspreader and the heatsink? If so, it doesn't matter how many times you thermal paste it or what paste you use because the heatspreader on the GPU may have come slightly loose when you removed the stock heatsink. The GTX 560 has a built in heatspreader so this is one guess. It's a nightmare to diagnose this problem if you have it and needs a good level of manual skill to remove the heatspreader but it is possible.

It might sound nitpicky but I'm not picking on you in particular here, it's a general terminology issue . The GPU you have is an NVIDIA GTX 560, the video card you have is an MSI N560GTX Ti Twin Frozr II. GPU != video card, a GPU is the main component of an NVIDIA video card and was an NVIDIA invented term. There was a time when ATI called the Radeon chip a VPU (video processing unit) to distinguish it but now GPU tends to refer to both. Anyway, moving on to your issue.

Apologies, I was just being lazy and not really thinking what I was typing!

edh wrote:

You no longer have good thermal conduction between the GPU and the heatsink, that's all this says but there could be a few causes. When you removed the heatsink for the second time was the thermal paste showing signs of sticking to both the heatspreader and the heatsink? If so, it doesn't matter how many times you thermal paste it or what paste you use because the heatspreader on the GPU may have come slightly loose when you removed the stock heatsink. The GTX 560 has a built in heatspreader so this is one guess. It's a nightmare to diagnose this problem if you have it and needs a good level of manual skill to remove the heatspreader but it is possible.

Sounds ominous. When I tried to separate the heatsink / spreader the FIRST time, there was a lot of thermal paste on both. I wouldn't say it was stuck, though, as most of it came off with tissue and white spirit really easily. Apart from a small, really tough, burned-on dry bit of paste on the spreader, which took me some while to remove. This bit of paste has actually left a faint oily-looking mark on the spreader.

The second time I split them, it was really difficult to actually pull them apart... it was almost like they were vacuum-sealed together. There was a fair bit of sliding involved before they would come loose, but after that all the paste came away easily with tissue and white spirit.

Not sure I want to go through with taking apart the processor area... but I'm already thinking about buying another card so I don't really have anything to lose....

Probably not a good idea to use white spirits to clean goop as it is oil based and may leave behind a residue that will inhibit the newly applied goop.Best to use a proper cleaner designed for goop cleaning or just buy some isopropyl alcohol.

Not sure I want to go through with taking apart the processor area... but I'm already thinking about buying another card so I don't really have anything to lose....

Well if you're at the point of having to buy another card potentially then this would make sense. It's a rare occurence thankfully but what you have reported of very high temps even after several attempts at resticking the heatsink, the thermal conduction problem seems to be underneath.

Another thing that would help in this diagnosis is whether or not the heatsink itself gets hot. 100C will burn you so be careful what you touch but if the heatsink is not boiling hot it tells you that the heat isn't getting through to it which would confirm a heatspreader problem.

The whole heatsink itself gets pretty hot. I haven't checked the heatspreader itself (I can do) but I would've thought that the heat transfer to the heatsink would be enough to let me know the heat is getting through the heatspreader?

There's no gap between the heatsink and the heatspreader, it's sealed tight.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum